Joelma Matos – Iyengar yoga teacher

Joelma is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher, a mother and a healer with a wide range of experiences in many fields (just the way we like them in LiveYoga:). She was Born in Brazil and started her career with computer-programming in university and work. Her life changed, however, when she discovered yoga 17 years ago while borrowing a book from a friend. That book started a slow and deep process in her which changed the course of her life.

From Brazil to India to Amsterdam

Thereafter, Joelma started learning and practicing yoga in Brazil and few years later went traveling in India in search of depth in her practice. She studied yoga with R. Sharath Jois (Pattabhi Jois’s grandson), did her first 10 days Vipassana meditation course and stayed in a Sivananda Ashram learning and practicing Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga as well as Hatha Yoga. Around 2007, while living in Holland with her husband and little girl she found Iyengar Yoga and never looked back.

Teaching style and emphasis

Joelma’s sees her goal as a yoga teacher in facilitating a state of healing in her students on all levels – physically, mentally and emotionally. She believes in the balance between movement in some body areas and deep release in others. In her teaching she connects the physical yoga practice with the awareness of breath so students can perceive the energetic level of the body and access their natural healing power. Nothing makes her more happy (“makes her heart dance”) than watching how yoga practice helps students develop awareness and presence in their daily life.

Recent travels and inspiration

In 2014 she left for a year in Brazil with her family to live in a protected natural reserve. It was a year of purification on many levels, with long periods of fasting, yoga practice and meditation while offering yoga classes, therapeutic massages and energy healing.